A Classic Reborn ? – Solomon’s Key 2

Solomon’s Key has always been a game i thought worked best on the C64, yes that is correct but that said i have only tried the C64, Arcade, Amiga, and Atari ST versions which might change over the years. The music, the feel and the difficulty is one of the reasons and while the controls can be quirky as hell i still think it is a fine game.  The Amiga version came out a few years ago and it’s a reverse engineered version of the ATARI ST game and it is actually an ok game and i really appreciate Asman’s hard work on getting it onto the Amiga.

Ok, Over to Solomon’s Key 2, much to my surprise this game popped out of nowhere a few weeks back and while i did see an article on Facebook i failed to realize it was a new ported Amiga game of the NES game from 1993. The Amiga version is not a port but a remake with the original NES assets and some changes here and there to fit the format and knowledge of the developer.

I have never heard of Solomon’s Key 2 before now and while i have never been into NES i still followed it a bit as some of the game magazines of the past had multiplatform sections where they mentioned some of the “other” formats top games etc.

The first thing that struck me when i booted the game up was that it wasn’t the same style that the first game was and the funniest thing is that the main thing of the first game ain’t a part of the sequel and that’s “you ain’t looking for a key anymore”.

Yes you heard me, Solomon’s Key 2 has no keys in it and the more i played it the more i felt it was a “push and pull” clone, you know… push blocks of ice towards enemies to squish them and so on.  Push and pull is an awesome game so it’s not like i got too annoyed but i decided to go to  Youtube and watch some clips of the Original Solomon’s Key 2 game to see if it was the Amiga version that had been changed.

The NES version was the same so this remake seems to be fine in those terms and there’s more to it as when i watched the NES videos i also noticed how the graphics was the same and moved the same so yet again this port feels solid.

There are a few things that were left out though, the final boss battle and stuff that involved animated backgrounds and such, the developer has stated this on their website.

This Amiga remake was created in Assembly code and it started as a learning project and that alone is a very good thing as this might give us more games in the future. Creating games/programs in Assembly means most of the time that the specs needed to run the game/app is low and unlike Meynaf and Asman’s stuff in the past, this thing works on every Amiga out there (at the speed it should work in). Oh and by all means, this was not meant as an insult /* attack towards Meynaf nor Asman’s games.

The Full Intro is in the game, watching it made me all mushy and i felt like i was 10 again… ok i was 18 in 1993 but i had been
an Amiga only gamer since 1986 by then so watching NES games in 1993 felt so very old school.

The Level selector, by the looks of things the original NES version had a much superior system/look, maybe there will be an update for this Amiga remake in the future?.

Ok, I’m off to play this remake some more now.